MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- With a major hurricane closing in, this is the wrong time to have a party.

That was the sense from many of the Alabama delegates to the Republican National Convention as they gathered for their first official delegation meeting Sunday afternoon at the Marquette Hotel. But they know, too, that this show must go on. The big question: What kind of show will it be?

We know today's meeting will be short and low key -- delegates meeting from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. for votes on convention business. No fanfare, balloons or speeches.

But whatever happens when angry Gustav slams into the Gulf Coast later today, Republicans must nominate U.S. Sen. John McCain for president and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for vice president. That's a legal requirement; it would be impossible to get the 4,000-plus delegates from around the country and U.S. territories around the world together later on.

"You can't cancel it," said Alabama Republican Party chairman Mike Hubbard of Auburn. "But it's going to change the tone, which I think is appropriate."

There's no plan to follow, though, and the delegates understand that.

"We've never been in this circumstance before," said state Rep. Cam Ward of Alabaster, an alternate delegate for McCain. "And we're in the modern media age. Whatever we do, and whatever happens, everybody will know by the second."

Ward is right, and it's a dilemma for convention planners. How the Republicans come off looking this week in the very safe, sunny upper Midwest may show whether the terrible lessons of Hurricane Katrina truly were learned. Each one of the four endangered states on the Gulf Coast is governed by a Republican, but those governors are hardly thinking about this week's convention.

The No. 1 concern of Gov. Bob Riley and the other governors is Gustav, said Edgar Welden, longtime Republican National Committeeman from Birmingham. "This convention is a second thought with them," Welden said. "When you have a storm coming, politics and football become very unimportant."

As a national committeeman, Welden has been involved in discussions about how the convention should proceed. Neither President Bush nor Vice President Cheney will be here -- which might in some ways be a relief for Republicans trying to win another four years in the White House, considering the administration's low approval ratings.

But how the convention schedule gets filled in is anybody's guess, Welden said." Everybody is very concerned about the Gulf Coast," Welden said. "That's everybody's first concern."

Hubbard is certain the convention will go the full four days, but he predicts there will be a "much less partisan and party atmosphere."

"We'll continue to have fun events for people to go to," Hubbard said. Some of those events, however, will be turned into fundraisers for the American Red Cross or other disaster relief agencies.

What Welden, Ward and Hubbard do know is that Republicans must be careful. The Bush administration's poor response in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is still fresh on everybody's mind.

"What you don't want is a big party and celebration while people are suffering on the Gulf Coast," Ward said. "We have to show compassion."

Welden agrees. "There's a fine line between doing what's good for the people (who are suffering) and grandstanding. We have to do what's right for the people."

Alabama Board of Education member Randy McKinney, a delegate who lives in Orange Beach, boarded up his house before evacuating to Minneapolis Sunday for the convention. McKinney takes a practical view:

"There's really nothing you can do," McKinney said. "The important thing to remember is that this is not just a party, four days of fun. This is four days of business. It's very serious. Some people have fun, but it's serious business."

All the more serious, too, because of a storm named Gustav.

Joey Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is an editorial writer, blogger and editor of the Sunday Commentary section for The News. He's in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., for the Republican National Convention. E-mail: jkennedy@bhamnews.com; blog: blog.al.com/jkennedy.